"I've got you."

I haven't been all right today. No sense of purpose, no motivation, just a heaviness, a terrible, empty hurt that isn't physical. I want to go Home.

With an effort, I stir myself to show interest in something other than me. "Are you all right?" I ask Jerry.

"I'm fine," he says, squeezing my hand cheerfully. "I've got you."

After a minute I ask, "Do you always say that because you really are fine or because you want me to think you are?"

"When I have you, I'm fine. When I don't have you, I'm not fine."

I consider that. "How can having me make you fine?"

"What do you mean?"

"Your having me is like a man in the middle of the ocean having nothing but an inner tube with a hole in it."

"How are you like an inner tube with a hole in it?"

"No one can lean on it. It will take you down."

"You don't take me down," he says.

But I know better.